The fact that an American, not a Russian, TV channel told the story about our own heroes is a source of shame for pro-Kremlin media.

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6/4/19
It seems every major Russian media outlet had to chime in about the “Chernobyl” TV series by HBO. Although the foreign program airs only online to paying viewers, the show has become something of a national sensation in Russia where the pro-Kremlin media have launched a mini-crusade against it. Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP), Russia’s most popular newspaper, raised suspicions that competitors of state-atomic center Rosatom were using the series to tarnish this country’s image as a nuclear power. Argumenty i Fakty, a newspaper popular among the elderly, dismissed the show as “a caricature and not the truth.” “The only things missing are the bears and accordions!” quipped Stanislav Natanzon, lead anchor of Rossia 24, one of the country’s main news channels. He pointed to shots showing modern storm windows on a building in Pripyat — that are only visible if you greatly enlarge the image — as evidence of shoddy film-making. It is an ordinary case of jealous resentment: “Only we have the right to talk about our history,” they say, “so don’t butt in.” However, the reception given “Chernobyl” says more about the critics than it does about the series. Thanks to the HBO series, many of my peers now have a different view of the Chernobyl accident. Whereas most disaster films culminate with the central catastrophe, only the first episode in this series is devoted to the Chernobyl reactor explosion. All the subsequent episodes focus on the harrowing and self-sacrificing struggle that the Soviet people waged against the consequences of the explosion. And it was these people who saved Europe — at the cost of their own lives and health. Watching this series provides at least a passing understanding of the hardships they endured in the process.

Russia, however, does not honor these individuals as heroes who saved Europe. Just go to the official Kremlin website to see how often President Vladimir Putin mentions the Chernobyl survivors — many of whom are still alive and suffer from a variety of radiation-induced illnesses. Putin’s sole references to them occur on the major anniversaries of the Chernobyl accident. He last mentioned them in 2016, on the 30th anniversary of the disaster, and again in 2011, on the 25th anniversary. Russia will never celebrate the Chernobyl events as a holiday — and if leaders cannot turn it into a fete of national pride and greatness, then better to forget that it ever happened at all. Still, an attempt will be made to put an entirely different spin on those events. Russia’s NTV channel has already announced that it is shooting its own “Chernobyl” series based on the premise that the CIA sent an agent to the Chernobyl zone to carry out acts of sabotage. In place of a moving tribute to the heroic men and women who sacrificed everything to overcome the fallout from the Chernobyl disaster, Moscow gives us a thrilling detective film based on a conspiracy theory in which a KGB officer struggles to thwart American spies — the new villains in this national tragedy. The fact that an American, not a Russian, TV channel tells us about our own heroes is a source of shame that the pro-Kremlin media apparently cannot live down. And this is the real reason they find fault with HBO’s “Chernobyl” series."

The HBO mini-series "Chernobyl" is extraordinary and well worth a watch.

At odds with the "Russia" perspective, Ukraine honors the Chernobyl Liquidators as national (and European) heroes.

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The tragedy at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was deliberately provoked to the collapse of the USSR and the separation of Ukraine from Russia
These are the results of an independent physico-technical investigation conducted by nuclear physicist Nikolai Kravchuk (he graduated from the department of the theory of the atomic nucleus of the physics department of the Moscow State University named after MV Lomonosov).
The results of the study are set forth in his work The Mystery of the Chernobyl Disaster, published in 2011 in Moscow, where it received a certain response. Even before the publication of the book, after the first leaks in the Ukrainian press, Kravchuk was immediately dismissed from work at the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

The findings of Kravchuk in the book review were supported by the professor of Doctor of Technical Sciences. I.A. Kravets and dfm.n. V.A. Vyshinsky. However, the results of the work of the scientist did not reach the general Ukrainian public.

Kravchuk asked for support from representatives of the Kiev Russian Club. Kiev Russian Club considers it necessary to bring its results to the public of Ukraine.

The scientist claims that the explosion of the reactor was pre-planned and carried out under the leadership of the Gorbachev Central Committee of the CPSU, and the wine was carefully dumped on the station staff, who turned out to be a scapegoat. Then the nuclear scientists were forced to justify themselves under the conditions of mutual responsibility and pressure of the “perestroika”. What was indirectly recognized before the world community by the Gorbachev leadership, to which all threads lead.
“In August 1986, the official version of the development of events at the Chernobyl NPP was presented at the IAEA session, and here is its main conclusion:“ the root cause of the accident is a very unlikely combination of violations of the order and mode of operation allowed by the unit’s personnel, ”notes Nikolay Kravchuk. That is, the station staff simply could not have blown up Chernobyl without a premeditated external intervention.
Neither the Ministry of Energy of the USSR, nor Minatom of Russia, nor the State Atomic Energy Agency of Ukraine, guided by corporate solidarity in the highly closed nuclear power industry, were interested in an objective investigation, and did everything to prevent it from taking place, in particular, they manipulated the station’s operational journals. As a result, it has not yet been possible to accept a valid official version.
From April 1 to April 23, 1986, “the state of the reactor core has changed significantly. Such changes did not happen by chance, but as a result of well-planned, pre-implemented actions, ”Kravchuk writes. The fourth power unit contained the maximum amount of radioactive materials per 1,500 Mk. At the time of testing, the reactor was in a highly unstable state with power drops. In addition, in some cells of the reactor was more highly enriched fuel from nuclear submarines (plutonium-239), which led to a sharp increase in power and temperature in the core. At the same time, the stock of graphite rods damping the reactor was exhausted. Qualified Chernobyl NPP specialists (A. Chernyshev) were not allowed to work on the test day, and those who were then at the station “asked to convince test manager A. Dyatlov to cease the tests IMMEDIATELY, to stop the reactor”. Alas, in vain, as he received the opposite instructions.

In addition, most of the emergency protection facilities of the reactor were disabled. "The experiment was carried out with the turbine generator (TG-8), on which the bearing was broken, and not with the serviceable TG-7." Vibration tests on enhanced vibration were carried out simultaneously with the idle turbine operation with a decrease in frequency and an increase in the amplitude and power of oscillations. After the steam explosion, which occurred due to malfunction of the technical systems (bearing) that did not withstand the overload from resonance during the tests, the reaction of water and steam into an explosive hydrogen-oxygen mixture (that is, the second stage of the explosive process) occurred, the scientist states.

After the hydrogen volumetric explosion in the confined space of the reactor, a seal occurred to the walls of nuclear fuel from “two or more poliyecae”, which for some reason was in the reactor in excess, and a local critical mass was reached, which led to a “quasi-nuclear” explosion. But only he could have moved the “top cover” of the “pans” weighing more than 2000 tons by 90 degrees located above the active zone ”,“ a plasma cloud with a temperature of 40 thousand degrees was formed inside the unit ”, which was noted by external witnesses of the accident. The presence of highly-enriched uranium 238U hidden by personnel “manifested itself in the presence of an excess of California in the accident products” on the first day, Nikolai Kravchuk says, “it was he who gave 17% gamma activity, again turning into plutonium-239 2 days - which is essential for the subsequent)! It is worth noting the seismic effect of the explosion of such a force, of such magnitude, which shook the building of a block weighing tens of thousands of tons - it could certainly induce a local earthquake, ”which was recorded. However, despite this clear evidence, the fact of a nuclear explosion, as well as its symptoms, was tried not to be acknowledged.